Your broadband results

Our deals tables will show you a clear view of the monthly price and average speed of each offer, as well as the length of each contract. If there are any promotions such as bill credit or gift vouchers available, those will be clearly labelled as well.

You can also see a breakdown of the costs of each internet package — such as annual price increases, setup cost and total contract cost — by clicking on the “price details” button.

Make sure that you're happy with the contract length on display and look out for the out-of-contract prices your provider will charge once your contract ends. This information will help you plan the right time to find a new broadband deal.

If the end of your contract is approaching, feel free to provide us with your contract end date and address - we'll send you a handy reminder when the time comes with new deals that may be of interest.

You can run your own Wi-Fi comparison by sorting our range of broadband deals by a number of different categories, including:

• Monthly price
• Broadband speed
• Broadband provider
• Type of broadband
• Contract length
• Bundle options

You can also filter out deals that don't suit your needs based on speed, provider or included services to help you just see ones that matter to you.

It's also important to bear in mind the following when browsing home broadband packages from the most popular internet providers:

Broadband in your area:

• Very few areas of the UK have access to every broadband package on the market. Enter your postcode and address into our
• broadband postcode checker
• to find out what's available in your area.

Broadband and TV deals:

• Broadband and TV deals
• Bundling these services together into a single, sometimes cheaper, monthly payment could benefit you greatly if you regularly use both. But it's only worth it if you actually want to watch enough of the channels you get access to.

Type of broadband connection:

• The UK has a range of internet networks, including fibre-optic, cable and mobile broadband — each of which has its pros and cons. You can find out more information on them below, or in our 'types of broadband' guide

Compare our best Wi-Fi deals to find the right package for your household.

When you last switched provider, you would probably have signed up for a fixed contract to use the service. These usually last between 12-24 months, and they commit you to use that service for the whole period.

If you try to cancel your home internet contract more than a month before its end date, you’ll likely be charged an early exit fee to make up the rest of the monthly payments you agreed to. However, if you’re cancelling because you have an unresolvable issue with your connection, your provider may waive these charges. But getting them to do this can be quite a long process.

So unless you’re not getting what you paid for, you should usually wait it out until the end of your contract if you want to avoid an expensive switch.

But make sure you know when that end date is, because if you stay on the same package after your contract finishes, you’ll also likely be charged expensive 'out of contract' fees. That's why you'll almost always be financially better-off by switching or re-contracting your broadband.

Learn more about when you should switch broadband with our guide.

Unless you're with one of the few fixed price broadband providers, it's likely you'll have to deal with a price increase during your contract.

Since January 2025, Ofcom has banned inflation-linked price increases on new customer deals, so future price increases will be a fixed amount that is stated more clearly to you when you're signing up.

Most of the big brands like BT, Virgin Media, Plusnet, TalkTalk and Vodafone have annual price increases set in their contract terms, which means you can't cancel your contract with them early for free.

Others like Sky and NOW Broadband usually increase their prices too, but you can often cancel your contract early as a result without paying any exit fees, because they don't state an annual price hike in their contract terms.

Some providers (Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, Trooli and more) don't have any price increases at all during the length of their contracts.

Find out which providers do and don't increase your prices mid-contract.

There are many types of internet you could choose from on Uswitch and elsewhere, all of which have different levels of speed and reliability. Have a read of each of them to see which one suits you best.

Fibre-optic broadband and full fibre

Fibre broadband is the most widely-used home broadband connection in the UK.

However, it's worth noting that there are two main types of fibre broadband in the UK:

Part-fibre:

• The cheaper but more widely available type of fibre broadband, this uses fibre-optic cables from your provider's exchange to your local street cabinet, and then swaps to the same copper phone lines as ADSL from there to your home. Over 98% of Brits can get these connections at their home, and they provide speeds of 30-70Mbps.

Full fibre:

•  Also known as 'fibre-to-the-premises' (FTTP), this is currently the fastest type of broadband you can get, with fibre-optic cables connecting all the way to your home and providing speeds from 100Mbps to all the way above 1Gbps (1000Mbps). Around one-third of UK homes can get these connections.

Learn more about full fibre broadband, or find out what types of broadband are available in the UK.

Cable broadband packages

Cable broadband is based on fibre technology, but operates on a completely different network to the above types of fibre. It's serviced exclusively by Virgin Media in the UK, and currently reaches just over 60% of UK homes.

It uses the same fibre-optic cables as other providers from the broadband exchange to the local street cabinet, but then connects its own 'coaxial' cables from the cabinet directly to your home.

This means you'll need an engineer to set up the connection at your home if it hasn't previously been installed.

Virgin Media's cable broadband is much faster than copper broadband, providing UK customers with speeds of up to 1.1Gbps (1100Mbps). However, while full fibre speeds are currently about the same as this, full fibre is capable of being much faster in the future. The technology cable broadband relies will take a longer time to be capable of higher speeds.

Learn more about cable broadband on our Virgin Media broadband deals page.

ADSL broadband

ADSL is the slowest type of broadband that's still widely available, because it relies completely on the UK's copper phone line network to reach your home. The letters stands for 'asymmetric digital subscriber line'.

ADSL broadband won't be able to handle the online demands of most families nowadays.

If you have an active Openreach copper phone line, you can either choose broadband packages that offer standard ADSL, which the majority of internet providers in the UK sell, or ADSL2, which is slightly faster but less widely available. But these cables also supply part-fibre if you want faster internet.

ADSL is the oldest internet technology that's still in regular use today, therefore it's also the slowest and, in most cases, the cheapest broadband connection type in regular use.

You’ll likely be able to get ADSL broadband in whichever property you move to in the future. But it’s always good to learn about what you should do if you're switching broadband while moving home.

Mobile broadband packages

Mobile broadband runs on 4G and 5G mobile phone networks, so it doesn't require any fixed-line cables to connect to the internet.

It's perhaps best suited to people who need fast broadband but their homes don't have access to fibre broadband, or those who need to get online while they're on the move.

5G is a newer mobile broadband technology that can offer ultrafast connection speeds roughly up to 300Mbps. But 4G, which supplies 24Mbps average speeds, is currently much more widely available.

Compare our Uswitch mobile broadband deals.

Find more ways you can get broadband without a landline.

Broadband and phone deals

Broadband and phones deals are very common, and it was pretty much the norm to get a landline added in with your internet services up until very recently.

If you regularly use a home phone to make and receive calls, it's definitely worth looking at our broadband and home phone deals page to see if you could find a great bundle deal.

The two main factors to consider when determining the right speed are the number of users and the expected usage. Here are a few rough guidelines:

• Below 30Mbps: 1 or 2 devices, mainly web browsing and emails.
• 30-60Mbps: 3+ devices, infrequent streaming and gaming.
• 60-100Mbps: 5+ devices, frequent HD or 4K streaming, multiple people working from home.
• 100Mbps+: 8+ users, multiple simultaneous 4K streaming, working from home with large downloads, and competitive gamers.

Not sure what your current broadband speed is? Use our speed test tool to find out!

As of September 2024, you won't have to reach out to your old provider to cancel your current broadband if you want to switch to a new one.

It was previously the case that switching to a different broadband network, such as from BT to Virgin Media, would require you to contact both providers. But since Ofcom's new One Touch Switch process, you only need to reach out to your new provider. They will manage the rest of the switch with your old one.